Joe Harris reveals his Lost “Year Two” Firestorm Story Notes

Joe Harris, former writer of DC’s New 52 title The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men, just last week shared his unrealized plans for the series if he had continued as writer for another year! Joe stepped in to help Ethan Van Sciver with the “Firestorm Protocols” story when Gail Simone left the book. Ethan eventually left the series as well, which left Joe the sole writer on the book. Last week Joe posted what he calls, “The Lost Firestorm ‘Year Two’ Story Notes Mindmap.” This “mindmap” is a flowchart-looking image which he often makes using his iPad when plotting out stories and outlining.

… [the mindmap] is based off of the original plans through issue #12… in which Ronnie and Jason, the two disagreeable Firestorms, would have taken on Pozhar, who’d sought to control Ronnie and gain access to the Quantum Field via the young man’s special connection which he coveted. Following this showdown, Ronnie and Jason, along with those Firestorms who survived, were to head into the mountains of northern Pakistan in search of a new villain named “Ashra Khan,” whom we were going to reveal was behind the “Rogue” Firestorms, a kind of Colonel Kurtz leading broken warriors fighting a war outside the war. And the conclusion of that story arc would have propelled us toward what’s being worked toward in this document.

Wow! There are some really interesting concepts put forth in there! It would have been fascinating to have seen this journey unfold. During a discussion on Facebook, Joe also shared this:

I always wanted to take the series toward a real epic, ‘cosmic level’ event. When you start dealing with the nuclear forces of stars, you start considering the notions of black holes, supernovae and, potentially, wormholes… which is where this all comes from. It would have been fun, but alas…

4 Comments

Heady stuff! Both from a story standpoint as well as from a creative standpoint. Very cool to see how the story could have developed, along with Mr. Harris’s thought process and “mindmap” for plotting it.

The idea of taking Firestorm in a somewhat “cosmic” turn would have been a really different take on the character from what I have read and would have been interesting to see play out. Maybe there will be a chance for Mr. Harris to revist some of these plans somewhere down the line.

I think I am in the minority on this, but I would have loved to have seen this played out. I was very intrigued by the early Firestorm direction. I felt this was one of the few New 52 comics that really struck out to make something different than before and took some real chances. Not sure that making Jason a potential future despot would have worked out very well in the DC Universe, but nice to know he would have been redeemed.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy with the return to “normal,” but I just wish that DC would have stuck with something for a little bit instead of the ever-changing rotation we got.

Though I must point out that some might be offended that the black firestorm turns evil and it’s the white one that has to save him.

Actually it might have worked slightly better had Ronnie become the villain as it would have been more of a twist and less on the oft-repeated comic meme that if you’re “too smart” you must end up a villain. Plus it would have fit with 1) Ronnie being a big football player, he would understand the concept of “make sacrifices to win the game” and so drift further and further down the “it all justifies” road, 2) it would have been cool to see that Ronnie could be a smart guy and crafty in ways we didn’t expect, 3) even been a clever set up as Ronnie fears Jason is growing power-mad, and ends up going power-mad himself trying to prevent it.

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